Chương 141: 53. Prerequisite 2

Four days after the forest school ended, I finally confirmed one thing. Human adaptability is genuinely terrifying. Otherwise, there was no way to explain how I—someone who had just survived on a hell-planet that blasted nineteen-hundred-degree firestorms every seventy-two hours, living on mud, sweat, hemostatic patches, and a stubborn refusal to die—was now sitting in a classroom, copying notes, and genuinely debating whether to fight for the limited-edition fried fish sandwich at lunch.

What was even more terrifying was that I was actually starting to feel like this routine was normal. That's the dirtiest part of a military academy. It doesn't break you immediately. It just takes the standard for what counts as living and lowers it, day by day by day.

"Shimo, you copied the third line wrong." Someone tapped my handout lightly with the end of a pencil. I turned my head. Maki Kushima, expressionless, pushed her notes exactly one centimeter toward me. Just one centimeter. Very restrained. Very polite. Very well-bred. And very annoying. Because translated into human language, that one centimeter meant: I know you wrote it wrong. Fix it yourself. Don't make me rewrite it for you.

"I didn't copy it wrong, the instructor talked too fast," I muttered defensively.

"No, you zoned out," Kushima said calmly.

"You looked out the window three times, and glared at that second-year in the front row twice."

"I wasn't glaring. I was conducting in-depth observation."

"Oh." Translated, that oh meant: Struggle with your pride all you want, you were still spacing out. My hand twitched toward a fist. Ever since we'd gotten back from the forest assessment, Kushima had become increasingly skilled at infuriating me with minimum effort. And the problem was, she was no longer the Upper House heiress whose motives I needed to question when she first joined the squad.

She was the person who had hit the dirt next to me before a firestorm, calculated water rations with me, and listened to Jäger (Hunter) units patrolling outside our hideout in the middle of the night. Once someone has been nearly cooked to medium-well alongside you, a lot of your usual defensive weapons become very hard to deploy. Not to mention she'd actually moved into our dorm room. I hadn't let that happen without a fight. I'd objected. Loudly.

But between the dorm allocation charts, Student Council stamps, logistical convenience for standby personnel, shift-scheduling efficiency, and Jess sitting on the sidelines eating crackers while enjoying the show, my protests had been systematically reduced to background noise resembling a small dog barking.

"Hey, Shimo." On my other side, Jess McCallow tipped her chair back slightly and leaned over while the instructor was writing on the board, dropping her voice like she was peddling contraband.

"Have you noticed Kushima is super clingy with you lately?"

"No," I answered instantly.

"She is," Jess countered even faster. Kushima didn't look up, just kept writing.

"I can hear you."

"I wanted you to hear me," Jess smiled her most punchable smile.

"You're acting like a high-end military-spec cat that imprinted on an owner. Usually acting like I don't need humans, but the second you turn around, you sit right next to Shimo."

"If you hadn't spilled hot milk on my textbook this morning, I wouldn't have needed to borrow Shimo's notes," Kushima said, tone as steady as a weather report.

"That was an accident."

"You were laughing very happily."

"Because it was genuinely funny." I closed my eyes and took a breath. Perfect. Day four of classes, and my left and right sides had developed into a dual-channel surround-sound system of hell. On the left, a cold, calculating clingy monster. On the right, an agent of chaos who'd watch your life burn and hand you the gasoline. And me? Sitting in the middle like an ordinary fourteen-year-old girl tragically wedged between two small strategic weapons.

If I submitted that sentence to the school paper, it would probably be rejected for being unrealistically dramatic. Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings. When the bell rang, I felt, for the first time in my life, a profound sincerity in believing the school bell was one of civilization's greatest inventions. The instructor had barely dismissed us when the sound of chair legs scraping the floor erupted.

People stretched, complained about the notes, rushed for the door. The moment those second-years in the front row stood up, the entire room felt like the air pressure shifted upward. It wasn't a height difference. It was the aura of I learned how to live like a human in this hellhole a year before you did. And because of that, the three second-years who had recently started appearing in our lives with alarming frequency were particularly glaring.

Evelyn Sado leaned by the door talking to someone, looking expensive and pristine, like high-end equipment you'd ruin just by having sweaty hands. Aida Rosen still wore her standard-answer expression, so mild it made your spine crawl. As for Ash Vander—standing at the end of the corridor, he gave off the inexplicable pressure of someone who wasn't there to attend class, but to confirm the ship hadn't sunk yet.

Ever since the forest assessment scores went public, these three had started approaching us in their own ways. Polite phrasing: upperclassman guidance. Realistic phrasing: the senior talent acquisition department has begun field reconnaissance.

"Shimo." Kushima stood up and packed her books, movements so clean it looked like she'd pre-planned the orientation of every pen in her case.

"Are we going to the library today? I found those basic fleet operations materials you said you didn't understand last time." I was about to snap back with I didn't say I didn't understand them, I said the textbook reads like a suicide note, but before the words came out, an upperclassman wearing a Student Council armband appeared at the classroom door.

"Is Hoshino Shimo here?" The whole class naturally went quiet for a second. Not because the Student Council was terrifying, but because in a military academy, anyone looking for you in an official capacity is rarely there to hand you a perfect attendance award. I looked up slowly.

"Yeah?" The upperclassman spoke with bureaucratic efficiency: "President Aki Kushima wants to see you. Now. Regarding follow-up data compilation for the forest assessment and confirmation of the commendation list." My internal alarm went off immediately. Commendation list confirmation? That excuse was as fake as a third-rate scam text. The problem was, it was fake in a very Student Council way—so fake that no one dared call it out. Before I could speak, Jess let out a short whistle.

"Wow. Shimo, you're really in demand lately. First the second-years, now the Student Council President is personally summoning you. Work a little harder and you might be having afternoon tea with the principal next week."

"If the afternoon tea involves a disciplinary notice and a suggestion to withdraw, you can take my place." I grabbed my notebook from the desk. As I stood up, Kushima looked up at me. A very brief look. But I understood it. —She knows this isn't simple. Of course she knew. Aki Kushima was her sister. A Student Council President who practically had protect my sister written into her political resume draft was now calling me away on official business.

If this was simple, the ten old men on the Federation Council could hold hands and start a charity.

"I'll be back," I told Kushima. She looked at me for half a second, then nodded.

"If it's more than an hour, I'm going to the Student Council to find you." Jess laughed out loud.

"God, that sounds exactly like a wife talking to her husband who has to work late."

"Shut up," Kushima and I said simultaneously.... Great. I suddenly really didn't want to go to the Student Council. The Student Council office was quieter than I'd expected. Not a dead quiet, but the kind of quiet where everything is placed so perfectly it could be submitted as evidence. Tidy desk, half-open curtains, color-coded files—even the teacups looked like they had a diplomatic treaty with each other. Aki Kushima sat by the window.

When she looked up at me, she wore a smile perfectly suited for running a campaign, or handing you a handkerchief after selling you out.

"Hoshino, please sit."

"I'll stand," I said.

"High guard. That's a good thing," she said, interlacing her fingers, tone as gentle as someone oiling a blade.

"Especially after helping Maki come back alive from that fire planet." I rolled my eyes internally. Here it comes. Thank you for helping my sister. So now I'm going to give you a little reward. Sounds like a favor. Usually acts like a noose.

"If the President just wanted to say thank you, sending someone with a card would have been enough," I said.

"I doubt the Student Council is so broke it can't afford paper." Aki smiled, ignoring the barb, and continued smoothly:"I am here to say thank you, of course. But also for the family, and for Maki's future. She cannot fall out of the academy. You should understand that." I didn't answer. Because I didn't just understand it, I understood it entirely too well. She went on: "So, as a token of gratitude, I want to tell you something in advance. Just a small secret."

My internal alarm wasn't just ringing now; it was smoking.

"The final term practicals have been mostly finalized." She looked at me, like she was gently reading a suspended death sentence.

"Among your cohort, those whose performance showed 'plasticity' will be assigned to shipboard practicals. The ship is—the Yukikaze." I didn't speak. She didn't rush me, just unhurriedly delivered the final cut.

"The destination is the Orion Alpha System front line." In that moment, my first thought wasn't about the front line, or the danger, or whether our group was finally being pushed into a larger war zone as official expendables. It was— Fuck. I'd been trapped. And I'd seen the noose coming and stuck my own neck into it anyway. Because now that I knew this, I couldn't pretend I didn't.

Now that I knew about the Yukikaze and Orion Alpha, I was absolutely going to look up the data, check the ship class, and chew through fleet management and shipboard operations material that first-years weren't supposed to touch yet. I would start preparing. I would start thinking. I would be dragged onto a path I could have delayed stepping onto. Aki Kushima looked at my expression, smiling like an angler who'd successfully hooked a fish and was now wiping its mouth clean.

"It seems you understand."

"Understand what?" I sneered.

"Understand that I've been set up by someone from the Kushima family again?"

"Don't make it sound so ugly," she said, tone infuriatingly calm.

"This is an investment." She paused, adding casually:"And Maki will help you. The library, the study rooms, I can even grant you access to some second-year fleet operations materials. After all—" She looked at me, her gaze sharpening for the first time.

"If you're going to stand on the Yukikaze, you need to at least learn how to recognize how a ship dies." I was silent for two seconds. Then I wanted very, very badly to go back to the classroom, drag Maki Kushima to the library, and write her sister's name into the top three of my People I Least Want to Thank in Life list.